


The Hero/Villain Paradigm

by greyathena



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:26:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3947107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyathena/pseuds/greyathena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three case studies.  Cassandra is curious.  Lamia . . . doesn't even know what she is.  Post-Loom of Fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hero/Villain Paradigm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LettuceKitteh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LettuceKitteh/gifts).



1)

"You don't seem surprised."

Cassandra frowned at the other woman, who stood next to the statue of Bast with her sword raised but oddly still sheathed. "Why am I supposed to be surprised?" she asked.

Lamia blinked and actually lowered her sword a fraction. "Well - I'm not dead."

"No," Cassandra said slowly. "But your body disappeared all on its own, and weird stuff pretty much follows us around these days, so actually that's not that surprising."

"So -"

"Actually I _am_ surprised," Cassandra revised. She crossed her arms over her chest. "You're still with the Serpent Brotherhood?"

" _That's_ more surprising than me being alive?"

"Well, yeah. I mean - Dulaque killed you. Or - whatever. He needed somebody to sacrifice and he picked you, even though - I mean, he's kind of a dick."

Lamia made an odd noise that sounded as if she were choking back a laugh. "Seriously? That's what you're asking?"

"I'm just saying, if my boyfriend killed me, I would not still be working for him." It barely even crossed Cassandra's mind that such a statement made no sense to normal people.

"He's not my - what are you standing there babbling for?"

Three, two . . .

Lamia's sword hit the floor, followed quickly thereafter by Lamia.

"I was stalling," Cassandra confessed. "'Cause our Guardian was behind that mummy case."

"Seriously though, she's kind of right," said Eve, who was kneeling on one of Lamia's arms. "He _is_ a dick."

"We're really going to do girl talk now?" Lamia groaned.

Eve shrugged. "Just sayin'."

 

2)

They were on their way out through the warren of dark, dank tunnels. Almost back to the surface and the back door when -

"Crap," Ezekiel muttered.

They were surrounded by six masked men in black, so Cassandra had to agree.

"What's the matter?" crooned a familiar female voice. "Didn't bring your Guardian this time?"

They hadn't, but that was beside the point. "Actually, I have a question," Cassandra said.

Lamia blinked, apparently as much in surprise as because of the light of the torch she was holding. "Are you - are you raising your hand?"

Being mocked was never Cassandra's favorite thing, but Lamia sounded almost more baffled than jeering. Also, Cassandra had been waiting a month to ask this and she wasn't going to waste the opportunity. "Have you been in more than one universe at once?" she asked, putting her hand down.

" _What_?"

The masked men were completely still, waiting. So was Ezekiel, come to think of it.

"Well," Cassandra said. "After Dulaque slashed the Loom of Fate, Colonel Baird got sent to all these different timelines where each of us was the Librarian, and you were in mine, so I was wondering if you don't die, maybe you're also able to be in more than one timeline at once. Or move around between them. Can you?"

"I - why would you -" Lamia frowned at her. "What do you mean, _I was in yours?_ "

"I didn't actually see it," Cassandra clarified. "I only know what Eve told me."

One of the men made what might have been a twitch of impatience. Lamia evidently noticed. "Look," she said. "Let's save the chat for another time - assuming you're still alive - and just give me the scroll?"

"Oh," Cassandra said. She and Ezekiel exchanged looks. "Um - there isn't one."

"Don't give me that -"

"No, really," Cassandra said.

"It was sort of more of a metaphor?" Ezekiel added. "Like the Book of Life -"

"That's real," Lamia interjected.

"Not that one, the other one." Ezekiel's fingers brushed Cassandra's. She didn't think it was by accident. "You know," he continued. "A way of describing the wisdom of the community, the unwritten . . . whatever it is . . ."

"The hopes and dreams of the - collective . . ." Cassandra gestured.

"You know, the . . ." Ezekiel shrugged. "Look, we're Librarians, not poets."

Lamia's eyes narrowed. "The Librarian did not send you here to deal with the wisdom and the hopes and dreams of the _whatever_. If there's no scroll, what did you find?"

"We haven't yet," Cassandra said brightly. "If we let you follow us, will you answer my question?"

" _Let_ us?"

Sincerely hoping this would not get both of them stabbed to death, Cassandra gestured up the tunnel. "We were going this way. Can we . . ."

Somehow they ended up leading the way, a somewhat confused Lamia and six thugs following closely. 

"So," Cassandra said. "Different timelines?"

"There's only one of me," Lamia spat out behind her.

"That doesn't really answer my question?" One last turn to make. Cassandra "accidentally" stumbled, and took Ezekiel's arm. "I mean, do you mean there's only one of you, or there's only _one of you_?"

"What are you talking about?"

Lamia was confused enough to be annoyed, and annoyed enough to let her attention slip. And the steam vent access door on the left hand wall in front of them wasn't really a steam vent access door - at least, not at the moment, not for Cassandra and Ezekiel.

"Well, do you mean there's only one of you, so you're only in this universe, or there's only one of you, so the yous in multiple universes are all the same - _go now go go._ " Clinging to Ezekiel's arm, she dragged him through the back door and they both threw themselves back against it, closing it again before Lamia and her men could try to follow.

 

3)

"So, I think it's the magic you're really loyal to, not the person?" Cassandra guessed. "I mean, I don't know. But Colonel Baird said in my universe -"

" _Your universe_?" Lamia sighed, not even bothering to strain against the handcuffs that held her. "Seriously."

"You know. The universe where I was the Librarian. She said you killed Dulaque because he was going to kill me, and it definitely wasn't because you like me especially so I think it was because I was magic?" Cassandra shifted position on the pile of crates that formed her seat, getting more comfortable. "So I wondered. If you'd like to talk about that."

"You wondered if I'd like to talk about it."

Lamia's deadpan suggested she might be wrong, but Cassandra persevered anyway. After all, there was nothing else to do till Flynn came back. "Not about me being magic. Just about magic. How you feel about it."

The silence was broken only by Lamia's sigh.

"I'm not, by the way," Cassandra added. "Magic. Apparently I met Morgan le Fay in that universe but I haven't in this one."

"Are you going to kill me, because I pick sooner rather than later," Lamia grumbled.

"I don't think we kill people. Not on purpose, anyway."

"And that is why you lose."

"In what way do we lose?" Cassandra raised an eyebrow at Lamia's cuffs. "I doubt we can kill you, anyway. Not that that's the point."

"Have you asked the Librarian?"

"Asked him what?"

For the first time, Lamia looked somewhat interested in the conversation. "Asked him about me. Does he have a theory."

"No, actually. That time you - well, you know, on our floor. Colonel Baird almost got killed, too - by Dulaque, even, so that's why she's kind of annoyed at him - and then there was a lot of other stuff going on, so he was a bit distracted."

"Huh."

"You shouldn't be offended," Cassandra added. "I'm sure he'd be really interested. If there was time."

"This is not about -" Lamia shifted irritably. "I mean, fine, he can be a bit - weirdly dashing . . ."

Cassandra wrinkled her nose. "Not sure I'm okay with you thinking that. Especially since he's definitely not for you to take."

"Oh what, he's too incorruptible?" Lamia huffed. "Ugh, no. You mean the Guardian, don't you? How boring."

"She's not boring," Cassandra said, instantly offended on Eve's behalf.

"I didn't say _she_ was, I said _it_ was. Honestly, the cliche."

A slight rumble over their heads, followed by a fall of cement dust, telegraphed Flynn's entrance a few moments before he fell through the ceiling. "Well, that was _sort of_ what I had in mind," he said as he brushed dust out of his hair. He grinned as his eyes focused on Cassandra. "What have you two been up to here?"

"Girl talk," Cassandra said.

"You know," Lamia said, "I honestly can't decide whether to kill you first or last, when I get the chance."

Flynn was grinning as he tugged Lamia, not ungently, to her feet. "We have the best hero/villain relationships," he said to Cassandra. "It really brings that little extra something to this job."

Cassandra had to agree.


End file.
